A Wiseman Commission to Craft America's Post-Cold War Foreign and Defense Policy

767 May 2,1990 A 'WISEMEN COMMISSION TO CRAFT AME XICA'S
POsfl'lcoIID WM FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY INTRODUCI'ION American
foreign policy, as must be clear to anyone watching world events,
is approaching a turning point. At no time since the end of the
World War II have United States foreign and defense p olicy makers
been faced with so much rapid change and so many bewildering
questions.The collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Crisis of the Soviet
empire, and the advance of democracy, free markets, and tech
nological progress throughout the globe will require U.S. foreign
policy and military strategy to change fundamentally. U.S. policy
makers will have to develop new foreign policy and defense concepts
and strategies to guide America through this tulmultuous period of
human history.

The transformation of inte rnational relations today are no less
momentous than those that occurred at the birth of the Cold War in
the late 1940s. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, America called on
its best minds to craft a policy to deal with the new threat of
Soviet power and exp a nsionism. Such intellectual founding fathers
of American Cold War policy as diplomat George Kennan, arms control
expert Paul Nitze, and military strategist Albert Wohlstetter
forged the conceptual tools for the policy of containment and the
military strat egy of nuclear deterrence.

Probing Deeply. If the rise of the Cold War caused a major
reassessment of U.S foreign policy in the 1940s and 1950s, surely
now the demise of the Cold War war rants a similar reassessment.
The U.S. needs to marshal the best mind s of the country to probe
as deeply about the purposes, goals, and strategies of U.S foreign
and defense policy in the 1990s as the founding fathers of
containment policy did at the beginning of the Cold War.

To craft a post-Cold War foreign and defense p olicy for the U.S
George Bush should create a presidential "wisemen's" commission
composed of fifteen or twen ty foreign policy and defense experts
dedicated to a strong national defense, free enterprise, and
technological progress. Due six months after t h e fht meeting, the
THE SEA commissions report should define Americas enduring national
interests, identify and analyze old and new threats to U.S.
security, establish the unwavering prin ciples governing U.S.
policy during this time of change, and set out U.S. foreign policy
and defense goals for the future. The commissions report should
develop new concepts either to replace or modi

the ideas of containment and nuclear deterrence. It should
recommend new military strategies for protecting Americans and a
dvancing U.S. interests. Once completed, this report should be a
blueprint for guiding the U.S first through this uncertain time of
transition, and then toward the goal of ensuring Americas greatness
in the 21st Century JHANGE IN GLOBAL POLITICS The U.S. a nd the
West may have won the Cold War, but it could lose the peace unless
American policy makers fully understand the political forces at
work in the world today and design new strategies to advance
American interests in a changing world. Washingtons succ e ssful
containment policy, particularly as pursued in the 1980s, may have
driven up the costs of the Soviet empire and forced Moscow to adopt
a less expansionist foreign policy, but victory is leading the U.S.
into un charted waters. The U.S. ultimately ma y find there a more
democratic and peace ful Soviet Union or a Soviet Union more like a
wounded bear, cornered and dangerous. Either way, American foreign
policy will be challenged more by the im plications for peace and
stability of a Soviet crackup than by the now dwindling prospects
for communist revolution throughout the world.

Global politics have been thrown into flux by the easing of
U.S.-Soviet tensions and the moral, economic, political, and
ideological bankruptcy of communism.

The fall of the Ber lin Wall, the collapse of communist regimes,
and the emergence of nationalist, ethnic, and religious tensions
long thought dormant have thrown U.S. policy makers into
confusion.The U.S of course, should welcome the spread of democracy
and free markets int o Eastern Europe, Nicaragua, and eventually
Cuba and other communist regimes. But new and unforeseen threats to
U.S security surely will emerge, and although Gorbachevs new
thinking has defused tensions in Europe, superpower relations
remain strained by cl a shing interests in Lithuania, Afghanistan,
Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere Obsolete Paradigm. One thing
is certain.The post-World War II paradigm for U.S. foreign policy
is obsolete. It no longer is possible to base U.S. foreign policy
on the idea of containment. Soviet military power is on the verge
of being rolled back in Europe, not merely contained. And the
strategy of containing Soviet power provides little guidance on how
to deal with the rise of other threats to U.S interests not
exclusively re l ated to the Soviet Union, such as Islamic fundamen
talism, international terrorism, the spread of missiles and
chemical and nuclear weapons, trade protectionism, and
international drug trafficking. As American policy makers look at
Third World threats in t he next century, for example, they may no
longer find communist dictatorships allied to Moscow and armed with
Kalashnikov machine guns, but fanantical and anti-American
nationalists armed with nuclear-tipped missiles 2 The main question
facing U.S. policy makers in this new decade may be less how to
contain Soviet expansionism than how to protect U.S. interests in a
world rack ed by the death throes of a collapsing Soviet empire.The
Soviet Union has a total of about 25,OOO nuclear weapons. Who
controls the s e weapons in the event of a civil war in the Soviet
Union is a concern of the utmost importance to U.S. nation al
security Facing New Threats. Neither the policy of containment nor
the U.S. military strategy of nuclear deterrence (whereby war is
deterred b y threatening massive nuclear retaliation) provides much
guidance in dealing with these new dangers to U.S. security.The
threat may not be calculated Soviet expansionism as at the height
of the Cold War, but uncalculable military escalation arising from
S o viet civil war. A nuclear attack on the U.S. may not result
from a Soviet preemptive strike to achieve militaq victory, as U.S.
strategists today assume, but from an irra tional act of
desperation emerging from the violent clash of warring factions
inside the U.S.S.R each with its own nuclear weapons.

Historians know that decaying empires are particularly dangerous.
The fading Ottoman Empire, called The Sick Man of Europe, dragged
Europe into eleven wars and conflicts in the 19th Century, the most
devastating being the 1854-1856 Crimean War where Briti a n lost
over 18,000 lives in a war to stop Russian expan sion into Ottoman
territory. And World War I began in 1914 as a result of the col
lapsing Austro-Hungarian Empire, as ethnic conflicts between Serbia
and the Austrian imperial authorities escalated i n to a world-wide
war. Whether a dying U.S.S.R too, will lash out at the world is an
open question which deserves atten tion as serious as that
historians reserve for the study of OttomanTurkey, Austria Hungary,
or even the Roman Empire THE NEED FOR A WISEM E N COMMISSION At the
beginning of the Cold War, American policy makers often called on
com mittees of wisemed or experts to advise them on shaping U.S.
foreign policy. A small group of State and Defense Department
officials headed by Paul Nitze con vened i n 1950 to flesh out the
doctrine of containment first outlined by George Kennans Mr. X
article in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Afli. The resulting
document, drafted in April 1950 and called National Security
Council Paper No 68, called for a major defens e buildup to provide
the muscle needed to contain Soviet expansionism.

Another committee was established by the National Security Council
in 1957 to address growing concerns of national vulnerability at
the dawn of the ballistic mis sile era. Called the Ga ither
Committee, after H. Rowan Gaither, a trustee and ad visor to the
RAND Corporation, this group concluded that the only way to protect
the American people from nuclear war was to deter aggression by
developing and deploying a nuclear retaliatory strik e force. It
therefore recommended that making the U.S. Strategic Air Command
more sunrivable against Soviet nuclear at tack to assure U.S.
retaliatory capability should be given a higher priority than a
massive civil defense program. Albert Wohlstetter rei n forced this
consensus in his January 1959 article in Foreign A.dn entitled The
Delicate Balance of Terror 3 which concluded that a survivable U.S.
nuclear force with an assured second strike or retaliatory
capability was needed to deter a Soviet nuclear a ttack.

The U.S. now is confronted with a rapidly changing world situation
that requires a sea changein policy. It is time to reset the policy
gyroscope. Presidential commis sions on foreign and defense policy
in the 198Os, such as the Kissinger Commis sion on Latin America
and the Scowcroft Commission on strategic nuclear arms both of
1983-1984, and the 1985-1986 Packard Commission on defense manage
ment, focused on specific issues. What is needed now is a broad and
comprehen sive reappraisal of U.S. forei g n and defense policies
in light of the climatic change in superpower relations CREATING
THE COMMISSION To prepare the U.S. for this new world, George Bush
should appoint a commis sion of wisemen to identi analyze, and
address the new challenges to America n foreign and defense policy
To provide him and succeeding Presidents with the advice they need,
Bushs blue ribbon commission on foreign and defense policy should
include fifteen to twenty prominent experts with a wide variety of
backgrounds in the nationa l security, military, intelligence,
economic, diplomatic and scientific fields The wisemen and
wisewomen should be selected accord ing to the originality of their
thinking, not the length of time they spent in govern ment.The
commission should not become a vehicle for elder statesmen to
restate the conventional wisdom, but a source of new and
imaginative thinking. Commis sion members should be Republicans and
Democrats who share a commitment to a strong national defense, the
free enterprise system, and tech n ological progress These three
elements of U.S. policy are rolling back Soviet power and
moderating Soviet foreign policy, thus ensuring the Wests victory
in the Cold War.They should be present in a post-Cold War foreign
policy as well tic about the Soviet Union. What has brought the
U.S.S.R. to its knees is not the diplomacy of detente or arms
control negotiations but Ronald Reagans military buildup in the
198Os, particularly the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear
forces INF) in Europe and the Strate g ic Defense Initiative (SDI
If Reagans critics had blocked INF deployment or stopped SDI, the
Cold War might still be underway. This is not the time for a
presidential commission on foreign policy to heed the views of
those who argued for detente while Mos c ow built up its military
in Europe and exijanded its power into Afghanistan, Africa,
Southeast Asia, and Central America in the 1970s dissenting
viewpoints, presented either as footnotes or as separate papers in
the appendix This would reduce the tendency to produce a
homogenized report reflecting the lowest common denominator of
opinion. These footnotes and papers could become signposts
highlighting sharp disagreements and dilemmas enabling Bush and his
successors to anticipate and thus avoid the many pit f alls likely
to exist in creating a post-Cold War foreign policy Realistic
Views. Commission members also should be tough-minded and realis
The commissions report, due six months after the first meeting,
should include The commission should issue two repor t s: The first
would chart the course for a post-Cold War foreign policy; the
second would define Americas enduring nation al security interests
and military strategy to protect them governing U.S. foreign
policy. It should analyze the changing internationa l environ ment,
identify Americas unchanging national interests, and recommend
strategies to uphold them that can command bipartisan and public
support.

The military strategy report should update the 1988 study by Ronald
Reagans Commission on Long-Term Str ategy, co-chaired by
strategists Fred C. IklC and Al bert Wohlstetter, to take into
account the impact of the East European revolu tions of 1989 and
the possible retreat of Soviet power from theThird World. Many of
that reports conclusions will still be v a lid, such as the
importance of advanced technology for future weapon systems. Yet
the demise of the Warsaw Pact as an ef fective fighting force, the
decline of Soviet military spending, and other develop ments since
the reports publication will have to be considered by the new
commis sion The foreign policy report should establish the
principles and new premises GUIDING QUESTIONS This commissions
report should be guided by a set of questions establishing its
purpose and direction. These should include 1) I s the Cold War
ending everywhere or just in Europe? What are the persist ent flash
points in U.S.-Soviet relations and how should the U.S. deal with
them?

Is there still a threat of Soviet expansionism in the
post-Gorbachev era? And what should U.S. priori ties be in
assessing the relative importance of such regional military threats
to U.S. interests as instability in the Middle East, armed
revolution in Central America, and communist suppression of U.S.
allies in Africa and else where 2) What should be th e organizing
principle around which an American foreign policy can be built if
it is true that Soviet expansion has been contained successful ly?
Advancement of American interests? Democratic internationalism?
American nationalism? A non-ideological policy of pragmatism and
realism 3) What should be the aim of U.S. policy if the Soviet
Union continues to break up? Should the U.S. overtly aim to
dismantle the U.S.S.R which could happen peacefully or violently
and will depend largely on events beyond Washingt o ns con trol? Or
should the U.S. stand aside for fear that the collapsing Soviet
Union could, like dying empires of old, lash out at the world and
start a major war 4) What are the dangers and opportunities of a
united Europe for U.S. inter ests? Is instab i lity in Eastern
Europe a reason to keep U.S. forces in Europe even if the Soviet
threat subsides? Or will the spread of democracy and market
economies into Eastern Europe create stability and reduce the role
of military power in Europe altogether 5) What d oes the new
international environment mean for U.S. relations with its allies?
Will the U.S. still need NATO if the Soviet military threat
continues to 5recede? And how will the U.S. and its allies define
collective security in the future if no single thr e at emerges to
take the place of the Soviet Union? Who, in fact will be the major
enemies of the Western community in the next century? Will it be a
truncated Russia? A united Germany? A frustrated Japan? Who, for
that mat ter will be members of the Wester n community democracy
and market economies transition to democracy and market economies?
Should the U.S. reexamine not only who gets foreign aid but the
manner in which it is given 8) What can the U.S do to encourage
free market economic reforms in the dev e loping world? What can
ease the massive foreign debt and development problems of scores of
Third World states guarantee of global economic growth? of power in
Asia? Could the collapse of the Soviet Union cause a major realign
ment in Asia, bringing Moscow and Tokyo closer together, while
creating a renewed opening of China to the West 11) What should be
the relative weight assigned to security concerns, human rights,
and the spread of democracy in the formulation of American foreign
policy 12) Where will m i litary conflicts likely be in the next
decades, and what military capabilities will be required to deal
with them 13) How should nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile
proliferation and the prospects of mounting Soviet instability
affect U.S. defense st r ategy 14) Will international changes cause
the U.S. to rely less on foreign bases and troops deployed abroad
to protect its interests, and more on the capability to project
military force by air and sea over great distances 15) How should
the U.S. prepare for so-called low-intensity conflicts involving
small numbers of military forces and unconventional military
tactics 16) Will the U.S. replace its strategy of threatening
massive nuclear retaliation to deter aggression with a strategy of
defensive deterre n ce based on the mix of of fensive and defensive
strategic forces 6) What can the U.S. do to ease the transition of
former communist states to 7) What should be U.S. foreign aid
priorities as communist countries make the 9) What are the major
obstacles to t he expansion of free trade, which is the best 10)
How will changes in China and Japan affect U.S. interests and the
balance CONCLUSION At no time since the end of World War II has the
world been in such fluxThe thaw of the Cold War has come, but like
the s wollen rivers of springtime, the flow of events could rage
into a disastrous flood. American policy makers need moor ings to
guide them through these promising but turbulent times.They need to
know where America stands and where it is going 6 Preparing fo r a
New Age. To determine this, George Bush should create a blue ribbon
commission made up of some of Americas best minds and ask them to
help him craft a post-Cold War foreign and defense policy. Made up
of men and women dedicated to a strong national def ense, free
enterprise, and technological progress, this commission should
identi

and analyze the new challenges facing the U.S. as the Cold War
winds down.

Due six months after the first meeting, the commissions report
should take a bold look at Americas future, preparing it for a new
age, while ensuring that the transition be as safe and secure as
possible. While only the beginning of what is sure to be a long
debate, this commissions report could become the intellectual
foundation of a new foreign poli cy as profound and enduring as
those created by the founding fathers of containment policy and
U.S. nuclear strategy in the late 1940s.